RLUK and The National Archives (TNA) are pleased to announce the Fellows for the Professional Fellowship Scheme 2026-27. After a competitive application round, the scheme’s Board decided to award six Professional Fellowships for 2026-27. The successful candidates will commence the work on their proposed projects in October 2026.

Professional Fellowships last for a year or 18 months and are structured around short-term visits to TNA, for Fellows from an RLUK member institution or eligible archive sector partner, and to an RLUK member institution, for Fellows from TNA or eligible archive sector partner, while being underpinned by a longer period of peer-to-peer mentoring and knowledge sharing. Professional Fellowships focus on a professional-practice question, contribute to a wider piece of work, and facilitate shared learning between TNA, individual RLUK members, and for the first time colleagues from the wider archive sector, with the purpose of overcoming some of the collective challenges facing research and cultural organisations.

Below are the Fellows for 2026-27 and details on their projects. The projects will explore a range of contemporary challenges in library and archival practice, including developing people-centred exhibitions, strengthening collaboration between archival and research data services, and making appraisal decisions for large-scale born-digital collections. They will also examine ethical, inclusive and trauma-informed approaches to collections development and sensitive archival enquiries, alongside the role of archival records in exploring colonial histories.

2026-27 Fellows

Chelsea Collison, Learning & Participation Producer, LSE Library

Project title: Who is this for? A practical people centred toolkit for archive exhibition making.

This Professional Fellowship will explore how research libraries and archives can make the most of approaches that are well established in museum practice, while recognising the distinct opportunities and constraints of archival collections. The aim will be to create a practical toolkit that supports library and archive professionals to develop people-centred exhibitions that create meaningful encounters with archival collections.

Host organisation: The National Archives

Sally Dalton, Head of Research Services (Open Research), University of Leeds Libraries 

Project title: Shared stewardship, different perspectives: What research data and archival services can learn from one another.

This Professional Fellowship will focus on professional practice and mutual learning rather than on a single archive, collection or system. It will examine how research data and archival services understand their relationship to one another and where opportunities exist for closer collaboration in supporting digital research outputs and collections.

Host organisation: The National Archives

Juulia Ahvensalmi, Digital Archivist, Historic Environment Scotland

Project title: From Accession to Appraisal: Developing Proportionate Workflows for Large and Complex Born-Digital Archives

This Professional Fellowship will examine how archive services can make proportionate, defensible appraisal decisions about large and complex born-digital accessions and backlogs. Its central question is: how can archivists decide what combination of technical methods, sampling, temporary deferral and human judgement is appropriate in different contexts when working at scale?

Host organisations: RLUK organisation (tbc) and The National Archives

Meghan Joyce, Senior Curator, Cold War and late twentieth-century, IWM London

Project title: Beyond Archival Silences: Ethical, Inclusive and Trauma-Informed Collections Development with Communities 

This Professional Fellowship will examine how institutions approach inclusive collections development work through community engagement and oral history. It aims to develop practical guidance to ensure ethical, inclusive and trauma-informed approaches to collections development work through community engagement, with a particular focus on institutions facilitating community-led oral history practice to address ‘silences’ in the archive relating to underrepresented and marginalised communities.  

Host organisations: RLUK organisation (tbc) and The National Archives

Laura Robson-Mainwaring, Principal Records Specialist – Modern Health, The National Archives

Project title: Archives, Loss and Access: Developing Guidance for Stillbirth Record Enquiries

This Professional Fellowship will address a highly sensitive and underexplored area of archival practice: the management of enquiries relating to stillbirth records. It will explore how archive services can balance their professional, ethical, and legal responsibilities while providing compassionate and effective support to users. A central focus of the project will be the application of trauma-informed principles within archival practice. While trauma-informed approaches are increasingly recognised within health and cultural heritage settings, there has been limited exploration of how they can be applied to archival enquiry services. The project will therefore investigate how archives can better understand and respond to the needs of users engaging with sensitive records.

Host organisations: Barts Health NHS Trust and Mass Observation Archive, University of Sussex

Onos Ovueraye, Education Web Manager, The National Archives

Project title: Cultural Appropriation, Capital, Industry and the Board of Trade Textile Design Registers in the West African Market, c.1870s–1920s.

This Professional Fellowship will use The National Archives’ Board of Trade registered textile design records as the starting point for a collaborative research and education project exploring how British industrial textile manufacture was shaped by, and in turn shaped, colonial trade relationships with West Africa, using Nigeria and Ghana as case studies.

Host organisation: RLUK organisation (tbc)